RE: New to scratch building!
 

I may be the only doing this but...

Water in a spray bottle and an old clothes iron set pretty high. Spray one side of the balsa, get it good and wet. Place wet side out wherever it's going and slowly start working at it with the iron occasionally spraying it down. It may not be the quickest, but I don't feel right about getting the wood wet on both sides and applying glue after. How much of the ca can the balsa suck in (capillary action) if the wood is already full of water?

My 0.02

RE: New to scratch building!
 

Most curves you only need to wet the outside, that will swell the outside making it concave and leave the inside dry. When I do big curve's like wingtips I soak them. Hear are some pictures of a rudder I did by soaking. Sorry about the quality.-BW

RE: New to scratch building!
 

That rudder looks amazing! How long do you leave the pins around the wood until its ready to hold its shape on its own?

RE: New to scratch building!
 

I think thay call that Planking a fuse !! I personally use the water and amonia trick !! Planked a fuse on an F3F navy Gruman bipe once !! wish i had it back !! or had plans for a 3rd scale one !! Like the Gulfhawk !! that would be so SWEET !!! Dale

RE: New to scratch building!
 

Never glue wet wood to a framework! What happens is the wood swells when wetted. If you glue it down the wood eventually dries and un- shrinks. The wood will pull in bewtween fromers and you will get an airplane with the classic 'starved horse' look. The best thing to do is custom fit lengths of wood to lay along fuse formers or wet the wood to bend around formers and then just rubber band it it place until it dries. Once the wood is dry remove rubber band for fitting and gluing. Then you will be more apt to fit the wood where you want it to go.

RE: New to scratch building!
 

The form is just 1/4" foam board. I used a large zip tie on the outside to protect the soft wood from the pins and left it to dry overnight. The next day I used thin CA and pulled it off. I think I found the technique here on RCU.-BW

RE: New to scratch building!
 

City??

RE: New to scratch building!
 

Now thats what I call a "Picture" window.-BW

RE: New to scratch building!
 

That's neat. We have hundreds of turkeys around our farm. Lots of deer. but not as friendly as yours. Nice picture, mom and her boy.

RE: New to scratch building!
 

I use rubbing alcohol and get it to start bending as much as I can. I glue that part with CA and accelerator. Then I take a rag and it soak in water then rub the wood, bend and glue. I repeat this until it bends all the way around. What I've also done is do planking. You can take a wood stripper like the one from master airscrew and strip 1/6" strips for small planes and maybe an 1/8" or 3/32" planks. Just glue the planks around the fuse until you get all the way around. Then sand smooth

RE: New to scratch building!
 

What sucks more than anything is im 16 years old so money isn't an endless pool. I need balsa wood for my custom jet that im framing and my lhs sells balsa wood streamer ( balsa sticks) for almost 1.50! Thats cheap alone but in bulk thats a ton of dough for me. My engineering teacher has at least 1200 streamers at his disposal that we never use and he won't give me 8! I hate it when im impatient to finish a plane and my resources have run dry![&:] Anyone else have this problem? ( oh and could i possibly use fiberglass to cover the wood cheeting on my plane? Or would monokote be better?

RE: New to scratch building!
 

Google Lone Star Balsa and break away from buying wood in hobby shops. They sell Mid West wood and it's really high dollar stuff. You won't find any scratch builders buying there wood from a hobby shop unless they need a size that they don't have in stock, that happens quite often and I can go to Hobby people or Michael's and get a stick or two. Just have to pay through the nose for it. Balsa USA is another good wood sorce but a bit more money.;)

RE: New to scratch building!
 

It was a bummer when Lone Star had their fire. I forgot how much balsa I was buying until they were gone.

RE: New to scratch building!
 

but you do know they are back now and you can buy from them again.

RE: New to scratch building!
 

No I didn't. I took it off my bookmark. have to add it again. Thanks

RE: New to scratch building!
 

I think you should use 1/2 water and 1/2 alcahol. Then only apply it to one side of the sheeting. Use Titebond. It will give you a very strong bond, and is cheap. You have to wait for it to dry but patience is a lesson well learned. Especially at 16!

RE: New to scratch building!
 

Gene, you living in a cave or something?? They opened back up a long time ago. At first they were having trouble like all the other wood supply places getting any good wood but they have there contacts back and it looks pretty good. I had just did all the figuring for my giant HOTS I was going to build and went on line to place my order into LS when I got a live feed of the fire. I had to pick my jaw up from the key board and watched the fire fighters try to figure out how to get into the building. No windows at all and just the front door, no real way to figure out how to vent the building without creating a flash over. It was something to see. I never did start that build.
Gene

RE: New to scratch building!
 

When I seen the building after the fire and probably a month or two later didn't see any progress so I took the link off the computer. Guess I didn/t think they were going to rebuild. I had quite a supply so I didn't need very much. I did buy some from crazygambler, but not much.

RE: New to scratch building!
 

I get my balsa here and i like their service. joe http://www.nationalbalsa.com/

RE: New to scratch building!
 

Here is the URL for lonestar-balsa
[link]http://www.lonestar-balsa.com/[/link]

RE: New to scratch building!
 

Truth is I wrote them off too but got an email from them when they opened there doors again. Either that or someone here posted it?? Either way they are back and the prices are still pretty good. I'm holding pretty good myself but if by chance I go nuts and decide to build another Sukhoi I will order all new wood just to make sure I have everything I need in stock. Dang that was a nice airplane!!!!!

RE: New to scratch building!
 

You are looking at a pro here in regards to that. Used to use it in industrial quantities while finishing heavy duty matting used in shopping centers.

Lets just say I have peeled the skin on my hands more than anybody should have in their lifetime. And my finger prints if you know where to look are all over canada. Give or take a year they should all be gone due to normal wear and tear.

Probably inhaled way to much of the fumes too, lost a brain cell or 2 [X(]

Edit:
Just foolin' around in the warehouse, we managed to set fire to a piece of cardboard and the right amount of CA to CA Accelerator.

RE: New to scratch building!
 

Tower Hobbies has decent priced balsa and for sticks I just buy the sheet and strip them with Master Airscrew's balsa stripper it's a lot cheaper that way.

RE: New to scratch building!
 

I use the 50/50 mix of denatured alcohol( not rubbing its to expensive) for bending balsa works great drys fast, Med.CA for tacking down sheeting.

I wouldn't use vinegar your putting acid on the wood which breaks it down, some like the amonia and water but I prefer the denatured it will evaporate so fast that there is less chance of warping the structure.

RE: New to scratch building!
 

Just finished framing my new airplane and soon im moving on to sheeting! Now here's a question: Whats cheaper and better? Monokoting the plane or fiberglassing?